Love, life and various shenanigins! or what evern comes into my head

Month: March 2016

Firstly, sorry about the stock photo, I wanted a photo and it’s the most appropriate one I could find.

I don’t know about you, but money saving and budgeting is something that is always on my mind. Am I getting the best deal, am I sticking to my budget and ‘oh my god that was expertise!’ As I work as a project manager I basically plan and write lists for a living (which is great btw) and I think to a certain extent this creeps into my home life as well.

I get a huge sense of satisfaction from getting things cheap or even free, and also getting the bests deals and saving money in the long term. I have been reading various articles on money saving all across the internet as it’s one of my favourite subjects. Sometimes when I read these lists I think ‘well I already do most of these things, and a lot more’ so I thought I would share my own knowledge. I have tried to come up with a list that is bite sized and easy to stick which. Money saving can often seem like a painful thing, especially with external influences such as advertising, lifestyle sites and generally trying to keep up with friends and family.

The big secret is though…… it’s really rewarding once you get into it, you start to become a money geek. You get that lovely happy glowy feeling when you’ve saved money, this is a feeling that lasts and makes you want to do more, rather than the short term happy that you get from impulse purchases.

The thing is this is like any other change in habit, it takes time to become a new one and even if you only try one or two things from the list please stick with them to see the benefits. It’s so worth it in the long term.

So here is my top 5 I hope you enjoy, please feel free to comment if you find your way onto my blog.

Do not Shop as a hobby

I know it sounds like a no brainer right?

But so many of us do it, we start to think of what we can do in our lunch hour or what to do with our days off and sometimes the only thing that pops into our heads is to go shop!!! We have been conditioned this way, to become hobby consumers, to go to the big shiny places with bright lights and fancy shoes and spend all of our hard earned cash.

We just need to find something else to do, there are lots of things:

Go for a walk in the countryside or around your local area (not around the shops!! That’s cheating)

Go to a free museum (most towns and cities have them)

Make something or draw.

Read a book

Take up an ACTUAL HOBBY

There are just a few examples but there are plenty of things you can do that doesn’t involve shopping.

Leave the cards at home

Again this is one that takes some getting used to, just take out your weekly cash budget and leave your cards at home…. It’s easy right??? I’m sure we all have some fully formed idea that there will be an emergency of some kind that we would desperately need to access £1000’s for.

Let’s face it, this just doesn’t happen!!

I’m sure our parents, grandparents and great grandparents (depending on how old you are) used to manage perfectly adequately with-out access to extra funds, so why on earth can’t we???

Stop trying to keep up with the Jones!!!!

Everyone’s lives are different and impressions of people’s lives aren’t always correct. So what if your friend has a brand new car, new clothes every week and all the latest gadgets…. For all you know they could be drowning in credit card debt and on the verge of bankruptcy.

Don’t judge your happiness or the things you need or want based on comparison with other people, we are all different.

So what if your sofa isn’t the latest colour or you’ve had the same winter coat for more than a season!! You have a sofa and a coat, just don’t worry about it.

Cut impulse buying (do the 24hr test)

This one is simple, if you want something write it down, go back to it in 24hrs and see if you still want it.

I bet that 9 times out of 10 you’ll be completely over it and thinking about the next thing you really need (want) by the time you review it.

And for the next thing you want…….. write it down and wait 24hrs and so on and so forth.

Get stuff cheap or even FREE

Look at sites like Gumtree and EBay for second hand instead of new, you can find items in great condition that cost a fraction of what they would have fetched new. Be careful though always check what it costs to get new, just because its second hand doesn’t mean it’s cheap. Gumtree also have a ‘free to good home’ category and I have found some gems on there.

Sign up for sights such as Freecycle and Freegle they are great and while some of the stuff is not what you’re looking keep looking and you’ll be sure to get what you need. My king-size bed came from Freecycle, it’s a nice pine bed that is still available to buy new from Ikea for about 200 quid!!!!!! I got it for absolutely nothing ( I did buy a new mattress though)

Well there you go, that is my top 5, I think if you stuck to all 5 you would be well on the way to having plenty of money left at the end of each month.

Believe me it’s so worth it just so you don’t have to count down the days until payday lol…..

Woke up this morning feeling groggy, off to work I go. My youngest boy (11 months old) who I affectionately call ‘smelly bum’ actually had a good nights sleep last night. It was the first time in ages he’s slept through but for some reason I still seem to wake up every couple of hours!

Im not sure why but it’s extremely annoying! If everyone else is sleeping through then why aren’t I?

I started to muse a bit over if this was just a permanent state of affairs now, am I stuck in a cycle of just waking up every 5 minutes. Is this just a never ending state brought on by having young children.

Will I ever get a full nights sleep again!

After my morning coffee and pulling myself together with the thoughts of ‘I’ll miss this one day when they are teenagers and spend forever in bed’ I venture out to work.

What a beautiful spring day it is birds singing, daffodils all around and fresh crisp air!

On a lovely day like this I can’t help but think how lucky I actually am.

We recently had an absolutely fab day out so I thought I’d let you all know about it.

The East Lancashire Railway is a restored track , stations and both steam and diesel trains running alternately.

My 3 year old son is a complete train nut!!! So obviously the majority of our days out include something to do trains and we are always on the hunt for a new location. This time we hit the train jackpot .

This train runs through about 5 stops I think, more details can be found at www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk that train ride is around 30 mins each way and goes through some lovely countryside. We got onto the train at Bury and off at Rawtenstall for a wonder then caught the next train back. The trains and stations are very well restored and you feel a little like you have been taken back in time.

The main think about the day out though is seeing my 3 year old’s face light up as soon as he sees the train! He even got to go in the drivers cab! (that’s probably not what it’s called)

Over the moon

My baby boy who 1 also loved the day out and the funky glasses.

The staff are lovely and really helpful, all in full costume obviously and we got to sit in the Harry Potter style booths for the return journey which was amazing.

Please take a look at their website if you like this kind of thing I really can’t say enough about how good it was.

Ok, so I’m new to blogging but I thought I’d give it a go as I generally have a lot to say. My main aim is probably quite selfish in the fact that I want to gather all the stuff I love from the net into one place and review if it’s actually needed in my life. I’m going to look at all the things that I think I need to be a proper grown-up.

So I’m setting my blog site up to include all the things I usually trawl through on Pinterest and Netmums and other such sites that generally leave you feeling less than adequate as a proper grown up.

I think the thing is, in the world we live in we are all expected to be some kind a super human version of ourselves. If we are mothers we need to be a great mother as well as keeping the career going whilst baking cakes, having the body of Hale Berry at the same time as being a domestic goddess. That’s all great but how much of that is realistic, or actually required to be happy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else of this! ‘Aspiring to Aspire!’

So I thought I’d start to share my experience of trying to acquire the perfect existence and see if it is possible. Whether it is or not I’m gonna have some fun with the journey!!!